Retired Constitutional Court justice Edwin Cameron remembers when being told you had HIV meant watching gay men die in their tens of thousands, with nothing doctors could do to save them.
In 1999, he came out with his HIV after two deaths made his silence impossible: anti-apartheid activist Simon Nkoli, who died of Aids, and HIV activist Gugu Dlamini, who was attacked and killed weeks after stating that she had HIV.
Three heart stents, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat Camerons medical chart reflects research showing HIV makes you grow older faster.
Now researchers are learning what happens when people with HIV grow old they develop heart disease, diabetes and other conditions four times faster than those without it.
Intodays newsletter, Mia Malan tells us what HIV has taught Edwin Cameron.Sign up for our newsletter today.
It was in the spring of 1997 and Edwin Cameron looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and stuck out his tongue. He was terrified at what looked back at him.
His mouth was dotted in flecks of white a fungus, the sort of spores that belong on dead bodies, he thought. Breathing was becoming difficult. He was having trouble swallowing, lost his appetite and dropped 15 kilograms. He was beginning to look emaciated, and people were noticing. Just the other day, a colleague in a crowded lift commented on his weight loss.
